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A post shared by Abigail Hyndman (@arhyndman) on Jan 29, 2018 at 2:16pm PST

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why-animals-do-the-thing:

darkwooddt:

Went to a waterfall to get some pictures (as per usual) and met this pup! Wild ADORES Frenchies, so we were both excited that he liked Wild back! #WildlingWanders

Sharing this both as an example of great careful play between two dogs of drastically different sizes, and also as good proactive management of an animal that is likely to have a high prey drive around a smaller animal.

@darkwooddt‘s high content wolfdog puppy is soliciting play with the Frenchie at the Frenchie’s level – he’s not trying to play with him like he would a bigger dog. He’s gotten down to the smaller dog’s level (because big dogs can sometimes overwhelm smaller ones if they stay standing) and you can see he’s being very gentle and careful in how he contacts the Frenchie in play. 

Similarly, it’s nice to see the woofer was kept on leash for this interaction. The smaller dog is off-leash and has room to maneuver around the bigger dog – which means he can also choose to back off and take space if he gets overwhelmed. Wild being leashed means he can’t continue to initiate play or be pushy if the Frenchie decides he needs space; it also makes sure that if the Frenchie suddenly did anything to accidentally trigger the prey drive that is probable in most high content wolfdogs, his owner is still able to keep him under control and remove him from the situation.